


Stowaway

by sceawere



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Adopted Siblings, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Forbidden Love, Making Out on Antique Desks, Mutual Pining, Orphans, Plans For The Future, Regency, Snark, Swearing, anyway they're basically married already, if not for the awkward 'everyone sees us as family' thing you know, surprisingly tame considering this is taboo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 21:51:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14434845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sceawere/pseuds/sceawere
Summary: Adelaide had always been the stowaway, the passenger on a journey she was never meant to see. Born in love and shame, brought to the house of Horace Delaney, as much a part of the house as the ghosts who echoed in the rafters.There is a ghost in the hall, now, here, before her. A ghost that looks like her love. A ghost that looks like James.





	1. There are Ghosts in this House

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this as a request on tumblr, so it was one long document. I wanted to split the scenes up into chapters here, considering how long it was, so some of the chapters are quite short. If you want to read it in it's 'original' way you can always click entire work if you prefer that. Enjoy!

There was a ghost in the hall again. There were many ghosts in this house, she was sure of it. They’d chase them as children, her and James and Zilpha sometimes too, up into the rafters.

Now his ghost stood in the hall. It was staring up at her, as clear as she’d seen him alive. He was the same, almost. Not a boy anymore but still her James.

“Brace!”

“Adelaide”

She collapsed to her knees on the landing when the ghost spoke. She’d almost forgotten what his voice sounded like, how it echoed through the hall and rang into her ears. How her heart skipped just half a beat when she heard it.

Brace came out into the hall, eyes following where James was looking. He was stood stock still, staring up the stairs at her. Why wouldn’t he move? Why wouldn’t he disappear? She slammed her eyes open and shut, waiting for the vision to leave her.

“Oh, you’ve scared the poor woman half to death, sir!”

She heard Brace’s thundering steps up towards her, his hands grasping at the top of her arms as she began to sob.

“He’s here, mistress. You’re not dreaming. It’s not a ghost” he soothed.

She shook her head, eyes slammed shut still. He pulled her into a hug, rocking her against him.

“Adelaide” his voice again.

“Make him go, Brace. Make him go, please. I can’t bear it” Adelaide begged, tucked in tight to Brace’s chest, trying to push away the ghost with her mind.

“He’s here, mistress. You’re not dreaming”

“I’m not a ghost” James insisted, voice closer than it was before, swimming around her.

She sobbed harder, burying her head into Brace’s chest.

“Give her a few moments, please sir. A few moments”


	2. Gather the Family at the Table

Adelaide sat at the other end of the room, legs pulled up to cross in front of her on the cabinet. She was staring over at the ghost, barely blinking. Brace was pottering about, fetching tea, fetching brandy. She was going to need a whole fucking bottle to herself if she was going to re-join her soul to her body. It felt like she was floating up in the rafters, with the ghosts.

“You’re dead” she insisted.

“Yes” James agreed, tone curt as always.

She flared her eyes at him, licking her lips, and turning to Brace.

“You told me he was dead. You told me you were sure” she accused, watching his deep sigh as he paused in his actions.

“I was when I was, mistress. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise”

“Then tell me why the hell he’s sat at the table, scaring the shit out of me?” Adelaide spat.

James smiled at her a little and she felt like getting up and slapping him for it.

“Why weren’t you at the funeral?” James asked Brace, brow furrowing as his head tilted. If she wasn’t so angry she was sure she might feel a slight amount of empathy at his interrogation. Brace knew them both, knew them too long he would say. He was used to them teaming up and causing him anguish.

She rolled her eyes away as Brace brought over the glasses and explained himself.

“And you?” James’ attention turned to her.

She slipped forward, sliding off the cabinet, the fabric pooling down around her as she walked towards the table. She knocked back the glass Brace gave her, with a chuckle from both men, and sat. She waited for the burn to pass, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I’m not a Delaney” she rose a brow, head swaying slightly.

She lifted the glass for Brace to re-fill, but he just took it off her and moved the bottle out of reach. She sighed and settled back into the chair. She laced her fingers together, unlaced, laced.

“Of course, you are” James insisted, taking the bottle back for himself.

“Tell your sister that. Speaking of - have you seen dear Zilpha?”

“At the funeral”

“She’s not a Delaney anymore either” she replied, rocking slightly in the chair.

“No…in all of this dirty city, there is no-one I can trust, you understand? Apart from you”

He lifted his eyes from the fire, to Adelaide, then to Brace, taking his glass.

She sat listening to them talk, pulling her legs back up to hug at her chest. It was cool down here, even by the fire. When she’d heard the voices downstairs she’d forgotten Horace was dead for a few moments. She’d pulled herself from James’ bed and moved down the hall, ready to walk out onto the shore and try to help him hoax the old man back into the warmth.

The dreams of burning ships had come to her a few days ago, catching glimpses of shadows, drowning under the fire until the dawn slapped her out of it. Sleeping in James’ bed helped. Even though it no longer smelt of him. No longer felt like him. She could at least pretend.

Going back to get her shawl or a gown would mean doubling back on herself to fetch one from her room and she’d simply forged ahead without one. Until there was a ghost in the hall and she’d lost all thought of the temperature.

Now, down here in the depths on the house, she was shivering. When they began to speak of secrets long hidden and speaking through fires, she shivered all the more.


	3. We Find Each Other in Dreams

He heard the door creak behind him, the soft fall of steps on the old wood. The candle by his side flickered a little at the new curl of air from the doorway.

“I went to crawl in with you but found your bed empty”

Her voice was sleepy but clear, a rolling tone to it that let him knew something else was coming. He titled his head to her just a little, body still turned towards the papers laid out before him. Her hand came to rest at the back of his neck as she folded a knee onto his lap and laid her weight between it and her standing leg.

“I convinced myself for a moment that I had dreamt up your return until I saw your clothes draped around and remembered how you would creep up here and sleep under the desk like a stowaway”

He brought his hand down from where it was supporting his forehead, grasping her knee and pulling it towards his chest a little. His fingers curled into the space between her thigh and her calf and squeezed.

“You used to crawl under there with me” he replied, eyes tracing the ink still.

“I never denied that. Shall we see if we still fit?”

He let out a breathy chuckle, rocking back into the seat. She pulled her leg back to stand before him, perched on the edge of the desk, and his eyes trailed up over the shift she was wearing.

“Did you weep for me?” James asked.

Her face fell, and she pulled herself up to sit on the desk fully, damn the papers beneath her.

“Couldn’t you hear me?” her eyes bored into his, the shadows of her sorrow still plain on her face as she frowned.

He raised his eyes slightly, not enough to meet hers, but definitely in the direction.

“The river heard me. I nearly raised her to tide with my own eyes. Sometimes I was sure you were creeping into my room in the dead of night.

I’d lay so still, so scared to open my eyes in case you were there, in case you weren’t. What if you looked dead? What if you looked drowned and hollow?

Sometimes I’d be brave or just mad with the missing of you, and I’d whip the curtains back” her lips pulled for a second, eyes blank and consumed with a memory “but you were never there. Not even your ghost. Just a cold room and the moonlight to taunt me”

She lifted her eyes, brow furrowed.

“Why didn’t you ever come to me?”

“Couldn’t you feel me?” he turned her words back against her.

She scoffed, planting palms down and leaning forward, closing the space between them. Her voice was bitter when she spoke.

“You weren’t there. You were never there”

“You wouldn’t have heard me otherwise”

“I was dreaming. I was…grieving. People do – think -  mad things in grief” she settled back on the desk, continuing in an almost whisper “your father is proof of that”

“How else would I come to you, if not in your dreams?”

He lifted from the table to relight the candle that was waning in the breeze and her eyes followed him, replying every memory in her mind, reaching for the details of each dream.

“You weren’t there” her voice wasn’t so sure this time.

“Whenever you dreamt of the water, you dreamt of me” he insisted.

Her eyelids fluttered as she scowled and turned her head back to his empty seat.

“Then I dreamt of you every night”

“As I did of you” he admitted.

His eyes were soft when she met them, not as stern as his voice.

“You’re tired” she voiced.

“I’m fine”

“Have you slept at all since you returned?”

He hummed in his throat, stepping away from her but she grasped the edge of his sleeve. She jumped from the table and began to lead him away.

“Where are we going?” he grumbled.

“To dream”


	4. Strays and Treaties

Adelaide took the pile of washing from Brace’s arms and slapped it to the table. James scowled as the edges ruffled with the breeze she caused and settled them.

She noted the dog at his feet, turning back to her work.

“Taking in strays again, James?”

“Worked with you” he replied.

She swung the cloth she was folding so it folded into itself and threw it at him. He was still focused on the papers and so it slapped against the side of his face. He turned with another scowl, retrieving it from his lap and swinging it back to her.

She giggled and swerved as it whipped at her waist, Brace tutting and stepping between them.

“I’ll have none of that from the both of you. Not since you were children have you acted so giddy”

Adelaide reached for a slice of the toast he’d placed down, ripping half for herself, lowering the other to the dog that was jumping between her and James. She leant against the table beside him, licking butter from her fingers.

“I’m happy to have him home! Let me have some joy in it, Brace. Besides, I don’t ever remember James being a child, so much as I do him being a little pric-“

“Mistress, you’re not too big I won’t clap your ears!” Brace interrupted, a stern expression silencing her.

She laughed through the bite she was taking and saw James lift his eyes to her, the ghost of a smile of his face.

“Come look at these” he nodded.

She slid from the desk, toeing around the dog to lean over his shoulder. Her hair fell loose and swung over to his neck and he reached up to wrap a finger in the curl. She smiled to the back of his head, leaning further to rest against the warmth of his shoulder.

“What am I looking for?”

“A treaty”

“A…treaty?”

“He’s trying to find Nootka” Brace’s tone made clear his thoughts.

Adelaide lifted her eyes to where Brace had stalled, teapot still in hand.

“No.”

“I’ve told him, mistress, would you try? Please remind him what this will do. Please remind him” she heard James grumbling to himself and she reached to grasp his shoulder “-that the weight of this will bring this house down around our ears”

“James, this is madness” Adelaide agreed.

“What do you know of madness, Addie?” James released the curl, shimmering about the papers again.

“Enough. Stop this. Now. Before they-“

“I will not cow to them” his voice raised slightly.

“Oh for!” Adelaide threw up her hands, wiping the palms over her forehead. She pushed them into her flesh and thought over the choices.

“Brace, leave us for a moment, would you please?”

When she lowered her hands he was gone and she plopped down beside him, facing out on the bench.

“If this is about your father-“

“It’s about my mother” James interrupted.

“Oh, James”

“My mother was from Nootka. He bought her when he bought the land” he began, ignoring the flutter of her soothing hand at his temple.

“You told me, remember? When you first came home”

“Do you remember my mother?” he continued in such a way that Adelaide wasn’t sure if he was really listening to her.

He kept his eyes to the papers, surveying every word on every line. She trailed her eyes over his profile.

“I remember she was kind to me when I would cry” Adelaide shook her head, the memories disappearing as soon as they came.

“She knew how it felt to be lost and trapped”

“James” she swallowed, words escaping her “Do you know why your father took me in?”

“Because he loved you”

“Bullshit, he did” she scoffed.

He dropped a paper, rubbing at his eyes.

“He wouldn’t have bothered with you if he didn’t”

“What is it about your father that made him take in a lost little girl from a shamed family? Hmm. If he was being charitable, he would have sent me to a good foundling, or set a trust for me or some such. But he took me into his _home_.

He didn’t do that because he loved _me_ , Jam”

“Don’t call me that” he pointed at her, turning to meet her gaze for the first time.

“He did it because he loved you. And you loved me” Adelaide insisted.

“So please, for the love of the God you don’t believe in, don’t crawl so quickly into their graves after them. Not when I just have you home with me, please”

“They won’t have Nootka, Addie. They will not have it” he insisted.

Adelaide sighed, eyes moving between his.

“But you will? What will you do with it?”

“I will trade there”

She scoffed, turning back so they were facing opposites again. She traced her eyes over the line of light that was rolling in through the high windows, spilling over like waves over the bank.

“You almost made it through the door before you ran away again, James. Very almost made it home” she sneered, a mock praise.

They sat in silence, the fluttering of the stack of papers punctuating the conversation they weren’t having.

“Is this why I received a summons from Strange at the East India Company?” Adelaide revealed.

James’ head swung around, studying her carefully.

“When?”

“It was delivered this morning while you were still asleep” she crossed her arms, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

“You should have woken me”

“You were sleeping”

“Which is why I needed waking” he fluttered the papers again, pulling a new one up “all I’ve done since I returned to this house is sleep”

“Barely, and only when I make you” she argued.

“You still talk in your sleep. And kick. That hasn’t abated either” he grumbled.

She leaned over and rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Then don’t sleep so close” Adelaide teased.

“And risk your wrath? ‘Cuddle me, James’” he reached his hand over to paw at her arm, putting a voice on. She slapped back, lips pressed together, laughing to herself.

“I don’t sound like that! Besides, you never complain at the time”

He hummed under his breath. She took a deep breath as he went back to his papers.

“Will he kill me?” she questioned, back to the topic of Strange and the Company.

“No. He needs you to get to me” he didn’t seem as sure as she would like him to be.

“He can’t do that by killing me? I’m hurt. I would hope you would at least pretend to weep for me” her curls rolled as she bobbed her head around.

He gave her a look, a warning not to joke.

“You’re more valuable alive - you know things about me that he could use”

She leaned into him, stage whispering.

“What things do I know of you?”

He pulled the edge of his lips just the slightest and she smirked at him.

“I missed you, James. Even your gloomy bullshit”

“I missed you, Adelaide. Even your” he leaned in, until they were almost touching, and whispered himself “terrible fucking humour”

She winked at him, dotting a kiss to his cheek, and jumping up from the seat. The dog jumped after her, following her to the head of the table, where she set about folding the cloths again.

“Have you tried the walls? You find all manner of things in old walls. I’m sure Brace would be delighted if you suddenly took a hammer to the murals” she joked.

James reached for the closest cloth and threw it without looking.


	5. As We Walk Along Strange Shorelines

Strange was stood at the head of the room, tucked behind a desk, when she entered. She hadn’t seen him in years, not since she’d hung around the gates of the Company, waiting for James to sneak out between training. She’d quickly learned which men striding across the courtyard required a duck behind a pillar, or a bush, or a wall. She’d been hiding from Strange years before he was ever looking for her.

“Miss Delaney,” he shuffled a paper over on the desk in front of him, eyes tracing over the unseen ink “or is it Miss Braithwaite, you appear to have used both concurrently at times”

“I’m a Braithwaite by birth, Delaney by choice. I pick whichever suits the occasion. A professional name of sorts”

“Ah” he quirked his expression a moment, amused she assumed “Thank you for coming so promptly”

“Well my promptness was to do with the men you sent to escort me here. I say escorted, but some may use a different word”

He lifted a palm to motion to the seats and she took tentative steps towards the closest chair. She waited for him to make his way over to her before she settled down, tucking skirts under her carefully.

“Did Horace ever formally adopt you?” he asked, and Adelaide swallowed, took a moment.

“He made provisions for me, there was a recognition”

He paused for a few moments before replying.

“I heard you were not mentioned in the poor mans will”

Adelaide felt like rolling her eyes at his choice of words. He didn’t think he was a poor man, he didn’t think anything sympathetic in any manner. Who was he used to dealing with, that he thought this would work? The nervous bubbling in her belly mixed with the flames that were building there and began to boil up.

“Not many people were” she deadpanned.

He chuckled a little at her response, giving a little nod.

“You want to talk about James’ claim to Nootka” she cut to the point.

His smile fell quickly when she spoke, and she brought her hands to rest on her lap, interlacing the fingers carefully. She used to do this when she was nervous as a child, weaving and un-weaving the fingers, under and over each other.

“Straight to business, then” he voiced.

“I find it best”

“Very direct, both you and your brother”

“He’s not my brother”

His lip quirked at the speed of her response. _Maybe try not to protest quite as much._

“Regardless, you share a father”

“Many of us do, I would think” she spat the words out with a mocking tone before she’d thought about it properly. She dipped her gaze slightly, taking a moment to compose herself. She needed to remain calm and controlled here.

“By ink and time, yes. We share a father” she relented.

“Who was your real father?”

“Is it pertinent?” she frowned.

“I’m curious. Braithwaite. Any relation to the trading Braithwaites?”

The air was hastily thinning in her lungs and she curled her fingers over again. Her eyes darted around the patterns of the map on the low table between them.

“My father was the heir to the company in his youth, yes”

“Ah, the errant son then. Yes, I have heard of him”

“Many have, it was quite the scandal” she had to clasp her jaw shut after she spoke to keep from spilling more out.

“A farmer’s daughter, wasn’t it?”

Adelaide didn’t at all care for his tone.

“My mother was many things and exceptional at most of them” she insisted.

“I’m sure, if her daughter is any testament to her”

She pulled a tight smile.

“Well, I’m sure she’d be flattered to hear, but they’ve both been dead for quite some time”

He nodded, sadly, or at least attempting to project as such.

“Horace Delaney took you in when a fellow merchant passed, very noble of him. You must have felt very highly of him” he posed.

“Not particularly. I was grateful for his choice, and I prayed for his health to the end. But he didn’t take me out of respect for his fellow man.

In fact, I was meant to go to my grandmother but alas, she would not have me, the stain on her lineage as I was. And my aunt, well she sent quite the letter to refuse me, also. They’re very proud of their charitable work, until it requires them they themselves to be so.

In fact, I was placed with a good family in good standing in a good parish, from who I promptly scarpered and found myself running wild through the streets of this disgusting city. Must be that base, farmer’s blood in me”

She set him with a thick look and his lips slowly pulled up. He was enjoying unwinding her, pulling at the strings and weaving them around where he wanted them to be.

“But what you’ve made of yourself, yes? I would hate for a woman such as yourself, who appears to have struggled immensely to ensure she raised herself above whatever misfortune could have awaited her, to be brought down by such an association. After all the progress you’ve made to find yourself here. Are you aware of the stories surrounding Mr Delaney and his return?”

She adjusted herself in her seat, taking a few moments to alter the fall of her skirt just so over her knees. She fluttered her lashes, licking her lips, and brought to her face a look of almost concern or confusion. If he wanted the poor little street child who found her salvation from the grubby world that birthed her, she could at least give him a show.

“Can you imagine how I came to find myself in the Delaney household?”

She lifted her chin, framing her eyes on the man in front of her. She kept her brows pulled together, blinking slowly and deliberately.

“I cannot say I do, Miss Braith-“

“James found me, one day, wandering the riverside,” she slid her eyes over to the fireplace as she spoke, head bobbing around “climbing in and out of the skeletons of the forgotten boats there with the other ferals, as we were at that time.

And a boy approached me, I say a boy, almost a man grown. He marched right up and demanded I go with him. When I refused, he tried to pull me from the shoreline, away from the others. Nearly took my arm out of its socket, and I must have woke half the city from my wailing. I knew what happened to girls who were pulled from the shoreline. Or in fact, I didn’t, for they were often never seen again.

Now James and our friend Atticus heard this wailing and came along at just the right moment…”

She took a deep breath and held it, before continuing in an irreverent tone.

“To see me free myself and crash a whopping great plank straight across the creatures face. Knocked him to the dirt and gave him another set of worthy whacks for good measure. Atticus swears to this day he saw brain, but he does so love his stories.

Regardless, James was so taken with my performance, he stole me home and presented me to his father. Much as one would a particularly charming stray cat”

She popped the sound at the end, head swinging back in his direction.

“So sir, I warn _you…_ if you think that I am a meek child to be directed with fake kindness where you would like me, you are gravely mistaken. If you think my gentle, noble blood will run cold with terror at your threats, you are mistaken. If you think James would be swayed by a threat to me, you are mistaken”

She cracked a smile this time, more a smirk really.

“He’s fully aware that I know what happens to girls taken from the shoreline, Mr Strange. He’s seen me scratch and claw. He taught me to throw a punch and handle a blade. He taught me everything you taught him, sir.

So if the plan was to coerce me into betraying him, then…I know what it is to be fallen, and I know what it is to survive. Survival is about making the right choices. If you think that I would let any man, a Delaney or otherwise, dictate my choices for me - no, sir. If I wanted rid of James you wouldn’t have been able to find me within 100 miles of this city upon his return”

She rose from her seat, a fluid movement but with haste, and stared him down. She noted he didn’t bother to rise, or even attempt to pretend to. _Good, we’re done pretending to care about decorum._

“The thought that you were expecting this meeting to be your way to the Sound leads me to believe that you are either critically uninformed or swiftly running out of options”

He dotted his cane to the table leg a few times while he gathered himself, and she waited, intrigued as to what his reply would be.

“You say survival is about making the right choices, Miss Braithwaite, but you don’t seem to understand how to make the right ones,” she swallowed at the choice of which of her names he used “Leaving this room to go to Delaney’s side is adding your name to his in the book in which we shall all find ourselves at the end”

“Well, my mother always said when your names in the book, your names in the book. I just hope the angels spell it right, for all our sakes”

She turned around the side of the chair, taking long strides to quicken her proximity to the door, to home.

“If it doesn’t say Adelaide Delaney, I’ll wail and wake half of Heaven”


	6. Mother and Wife

Adelaide nearly threw herself up the stairs, feet bouncing, barely touching the steps in her haste to make it into the house. She rested her palms against the inside of the door as she slammed it shut, the air of the house wrapping around her and settling into her bones. She sighed, forehead meeting the wood. It needed re-varnishing, she noted.

“Adelaide!”

She sighed again, before smiling at the call from the front room. James’ voice echoing around the halls was all she’d wished for on so many days. She stepped back from the door, bringing the edge of her shawl up to grasp between her teeth while she shrugged off her coat.

“ _Jus u min_ ” she mumbled back.

“Adelaide!”

She blew air from her nose, eyes rolling. Maybe she was going to get sick of hearing his call again sooner than she thought.

“ _’ang un!”_

Brace came up to take her coat, the look on his face making her draw her eyebrows together. She stepped into the room, eyes surveying the scene. Her jaw unclenched and the shawl fell into her waiting hands.

“Who’s this?”

The lady rose from the chair – Horace’s chair – and introduced herself with a satisfied smile.

“I’m Mrs Delaney but you can call me Lorna”

“Oh, not another one” Adelaide sighed, rolling the shawl up in her hands.

James hissed under his breath and Adelaide bobbed her head towards him then up to the painting of Horace on the wall.

“Better be one of his and not yours”

She laughed a little at the face he gave her, her tongue pressed to the inside of her teeth as she tried to contain her wide smile. Adelaide turned to the guest.

“Well, Mrs Delaney” Lorna smiled at the use of the name, taking the hand Adelaide held out to shake “welcome to the house of the damned”

Lorna’s face fell just a little as Adelaide pulled back, scrunching the shawl even further around her cold hands. She turned to James when he spoke in a grumble.

“Don’t call her that”

“Why not, it’s her name isn’t it?” she returned.

“That is to be determined” he pointed.

“James- “

“The fact that you were here when they were supposedly married but seemed not to know of her only adds to my suspicion” Adelaide rolled her eyes, looking away from the pair of them.

“I took as little interest in his private affairs as was physically possible, James. I could have attended the ceremony myself and paid it no mind”

He near growled with the response and Adelaide tipped her head, squinting to him for just a second. This woman had him truly wound up. Good. A speck of the pain he’d caused this household. She turned her head back over to where Lorna had taken her seat again.

“When and where?”

A document was produced from her coat and swiftly passed over before James could make the short steps to meet them. He’d taken up residence a few paces away, seemingly repelled from the area where the visitor sat.

“Two years ago, in Dublin” Lorna explained.

“Ohhhh, yes. I hate to break it to you, James. But I in fact…believe her”

He stepped over to her slowly, chest meeting the side of her arm. She held the document back out to Lorna, lifting her head to meet his eyes. She snuggled over a little, trying to steal the warmth he was pouring out.

“You believe her?”

“I do. I do believe they said I do” she sing-songed.

“Now is not the time for jokes, Addie” he glared down at her, only furthering her smile.

“Well, what is it time for then?” she didn’t let him respond before she continued “I remember him going to Dublin, I remember him returning”

“That isn’t proof”

“Let me finish! I was going to say that I remember him being as close to a giddy child as I’d ever seen him, when he returned. He wrote a dozen letters each day, snuck off to the theatre every night. I took more care to conceal myself when I used to sneak off to meet you at the Company. For goodness sake, he was smitten with something!”

“More proof that he was undoubtedly senile, then” he didn’t respond to her eye roll, except to raise his hand to rest on her spine “we both remember father was never an affectionate man”

“Well we’re apparently both the spit of our makers then” she snarked back “Why don’t you believe her?”

He took a pause before replying.

“You don’t find the timing odd? Father was significantly older than her and-“

“Oh, well, James. If the groom being of a certain age is an inherently voiding matter, you should walk through the city professing it very loudly. I am sure there are all manner of women who will be elated to discover they are now free of their bonds”

Lorna’s smile widened as she turned her head from Adelaide to James and back.

“I like her. Your wife?” she asked.

“No!”

“No!”

She kept her head still, eyes flicking between them as they turned to her and spoke simultaneously. Adelaide cleared her throat.

“His father raised me for a time” she conceded.

“Oh, so you’re the sister?” she squinted and nodded to herself a little, turning to a shake when they parroted each other again.

“No!”

“No!”

Adelaide sighed, fiddling with her shawl, scrunched between her hands. Suddenly James’ touch was burning through the cloth of her back and making her skin prickle. She shuffled in place, moving away from his subtly. She turned back to the hallway, throwing a comment back over her shoulder as she went.

“As much as you’re his mother - Brace! Could we, in all kindness, have some tea please?” the shawl was draped over the bannister and she swung herself around the post to drop to the stairs. She set about undoing the laces of her boots, kicking them away as she leant back to the step with her elbows.

She saw Lorna bend towards her over the armrest.

“In fact I am his mother now, by legality. You shall have to inform me exactly how to discipline him, for he doesn’t seem to be listening to me at all”

“Oh, we lost the ability to discipline James quite a while ago, in fact. If you do work something out, kindly pass it along. He has a number of misdeeds against me I have yet to force him to atone for”


	7. Mine By Choice

She was perched on the desk, knees lifted on a chair. Her head was in her hands and she was contemplating take a good run for the window. Adelaide and James were halfway through arguing about the ridiculous events of the past few weeks. She’d barely slept, she was exhausted, and quite frankly, she was finished with this business.

“Let’s reflect, shall we?”

“I’d prefer not to” James groused.

“You’ve been ripped half open, a child is dead, Lorna was put in jeopardy, stabbed a noble, got arrested, was very nearly assaulted for a piece of fucking land, you set up a robbery we will probably still all hang for, to gain gunpowder to trade, on a piece of land that we will probably still all hang for… I- for goodness sake, we’ve been running all over the city like scared rats – James, I beg you, see sense” Adelaide implored.

“And what would that be?”

She groaned through her teeth, fingers combing back through her hair.

“Whatever choice leaves us alive at the end of this”

“Nootka is where we are at the end of this” he insisted.

“I forgot colluding with Americans” she added as an aside, looking over as a breeze hovered through the room.

“Adelaide” James tried to bring her back out of her reverie.

“Add that to the list” she whispered to herself, lost in the thought of all the chaos caused since his return.

He groaned himself, dropping back into the window. His shadow stretched out before him, crawling over to her.

“It will all be over soon, Adelaide, I promise”

“Don’t make me promises. The last promise you made to be safe, you didn’t come home for years”

His head bent back to the glass but he kept his eyes on Adelaide.

“None of this will matter in Nootka”

Adelaide took in a deep breath, eyes rolling up as far as they would go without becoming part of her skull. There were shadows in the rafters, plenty to catch her eye but not enough to settle her ire.

“If you say ‘Nootka’ one more fucking time, I’ll cut your tongue out. I’m not going to Nootka, James”

“Of course you are”

“No. They’ll chase us there, too. What’s to stop them chasing us all there, too? It’s what they want! They’ll chase us and root us out. Burn the place to the ground only to own the ashes. What’s to stop them? So long as there’s enough ground left to make a map the way they want it and keep a boat where they want it-”

“I won’t let them”

“Oh, you’re not God, for crying out loud!” she screamed.

“Neither are they”

Adelaide leaned right over the table, body twisted, hands clawing at the edge of the wood.

“As close as on Earth sometimes. Think of it – who do you think the Crown listens to more? Who do you think they’re listening to right now?”

He kept his eyes on her, his breaths even. She shook her head and sat back.

“This will never end. This will never, they’ll never let us go!”

“They don’t have us to keep us” he argued.

Adelaide tilted her head, eyes softening.

“I’m entirely sure they own every one of us”

“When did you lose your nerve, Adelaide?”

She scowled at him.

“You used to be with me” he added.

“I’ve always been with you! Don’t you dare accuse me of that, James!”

“Then why are you like this now?”

“Because I’m scared!” she admitted.

Her shout echoed through the rafters.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore. You think Nootka will solve everything. That it’s a magical fix to every problem that chases us, but you can’t hide from the things in your own head James, you can’t hide from the problems you make yourself” she motioned up to her temple “You think Nootka is a fresh start? Do you honestly believe that?”

“I do”

“How? Explain it to me. Because so far, I haven’t been convinced”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“Nootka provides opportunity for the claim of the whole island, meaning they can’t put the border where they want it. So, if we own Nootka, we can pass to the Americans. And they can help provide us with the monopoly of the trading to China. And by extension-“

“Fuck the East India Company” she surmised.

“Precisely”

“And the Americans will protect us from said East India, because we will have provided them with a wider border and a cut of one of the most profitable trade routes since the abolition cut off the triangle?” she continued.

“Precisely”

“And also, fuck the East India Company” she added, with more fervour.

“Fuck the East India” James agreed.

Adelaide fixed the robe around her, where it pooled at her hips. She sighed and thought.

“Say I come with you, then. What will I do in all this? Build a cabin in the woods and wait patiently on the bay for you – pining for the return of my dear sailor?” she mocked.

“If you want. Or you could sail with me”

She flung her brows up, mouth open, and exaggerated. A performance.

“To China? Oh, whatever would we do with the children, Mr Delaney?! Let the woodland creatures raise them like wolves, but of course, how silly of me!”

She’d meant it as a joke but James had raised his eyes at the mention of their domesticity, lifting himself and stepping towards her. She shook her head, averting her gaze, and settled back on the table as he approached.

“No, James”

He stepped to her anyway, settling by her knees, trying to nudge his way between them. She kept staring in the fire as she relented, his hands coming to toy at her jaw. She pushed her palms down into the wood of the desk, rooting her to the part of her world that remained apart from him.

“We can be who we want to be there. You want to be my pretty little wife, you can be that. I’ll build you a dozen cabins-” he tightened his grip as she moved away from him. She lifted her knees, meaning to use them to separate his body away from hers but it just allowed him to push further to her, rooting them together.

“-and you can fill them with everything I am going to give you”

She clamped her eyes shut, trying to force the images that flooded her mind. She dropped her head back, taking a cleansing breath.

“Stop talking James. And be reasonable. You are going as mad as your father, now!”

“Nobody knows us in Nootka. Not a soul”

“And I’m sure they’ll welcome us with open arms, but- we can’t just…go. I can’t just leave” Adelaide argued.

“Why not? You hate the city”

“I don’t hate…the Crown will disown us! We will be traitors, we shall never be able to come home. This isn’t a decision you make for…God! James! Think about what you say”

“You’re holding on to things you don’t even want, because you’re scared. And you told me you didn’t want to be scared anymore.

You tried to stowaway on a ship twelve times in the first year we had you here.  You said you were done with this place, with everything it represented. That you were going to find a new world and make it your own. I remember chasing after you, a dozen times”

She swallowed, turning her head slowly, a few inches at a time. She kept her eyes down by his jaw, flicking them up a second and back, a second and back. If she kept his stare, she might melt into it and never be freed again.

“Did you ever consider that’s why I was running? You ruined a perfectly lovely walk down to the docks”

He let out a single bark of laughter, fingers gripping and weaving at her jaw, their soft scrapes lighting her up. He held his thumb over the beat of her pulse, melding them together.

“Maybe that’s what I should do again, but in reverse this time. Hmm? Instead of dragging you from stray ships perhaps I should haul you onto one” James teased.

Adelaide jutted her chin forward.

“I’d claw your face and pitch myself back into the water before we ever made it from port”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. I’d expect nothing less from my Addie” he soothed.

The venom dropped from her as a smile pulled across her face and he dropped his head to rub against her temple. Her eyes shut and she leaned towards it, throat opening with a hum as she did. His hand travelled down, tracing as he would over the plains of a map. His thumb came to land in the dip of her throat making her mouth fall open, drawing in a slow breath, testing at the pressure.

He was right at her ear now, the flush of air dancing in her hair, the rumble of his voice pouring into her bones.

“We can be who we want to be there. No one knows us. A world of our making. We will be to them who we want to be, not who we were. No more hiding behind decorum. No more pretending to be people long dead. You wouldn’t have to stowaway anymore. You would be free, to take to the sea when you wanted. To use whatever name pleased you” he explained.

“You have a reason to be there. You have your mother’s soul. You are partly theirs by blood, but I’m-“

“Mine by choice”

The breath fled from her lungs and she felt him pull her back up as she slumped back. Speaking the words was like breaking a spell. He drew her in, just a breath away from him. Her arms reached up, like branches for the sun, gripping into his shirt at his shoulder blades. She was near panting, eyes travelling wildly between both of his. He was still, calm, but his breath was betraying him as he heaved in and out against her.

The first time they’d kissed it was a chaste test of a feeling that had hung over them for too long. There was always a stretch of time between them, where they’d dance around, shadows chasing after each other as they passed in halls and entryways, grasping out for the other. After an appropriate time of starving herself she’d relent. Indulge for just a second in comparison to the stretch of the fasting she’d endured. They’d gorge on each other, grasping and greedy. Pouring out every whisper in the dead of night, every stalled heartbeat, every held breath.

She’d wait for him in the alley beside the Company, pulling at the thread of her sleeve, waiting to grab him and pull him into the shadows. Waiting to melt into the smoke of the city, just another two young lovers snatching what moments together they could. She heard people hooting as they passed sometimes, or oblivious ladies remarking about how beautiful young love was. Another faceless cadet and his smitten maid. She’d smile into his lips, feel him grip a little tighter at her waist, their joke of ‘if only they knew’.

It was different now. They weren’t children anymore. It wasn’t innocent testing of boundaries, playing with the edges of propriety. It was as passionate as it had ever been but the feeling was different. It was heightened, rougher, and closer somehow. She was sure she was drawing blood as she flung her hand up to the back of his neck, nails clawing into the nape, not allowing him to move an inch from her now that she had him again. His fingers were delving to her waist, to her thigh, separating the thin cloth of her shift away from her and trailing cool air after them. The thumb at her throat tightened almost unperceptively, the resistance delicious.

He jerked her towards him again, pushing to lean her back towards the table as she moaned into him. They broke for the first time at her smile, her lip held between her teeth as she leaned back and rocked against him. His response was almost a roar, digging into the skin at her back, carving across the path of her ribs as they wrapped around her. A gasp came from her throat, surging forward to meld their foreheads.

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, the silence stretching around them, the air burning. She opened her mouth so many times but her voice had fled. Maybe there was a spell involved.

“Who are you going to be?” she questioned, still breathless.

His brow furrowed just a moment, eyes tracing back up from her lips.

“You said I could use whatever name I chose – who will you be?”

“I’ve always been James Delaney. He just wasn’t me”

She broke out in a smile, her eyes flickering and fluttering. She felt half drunk, being this close to him.

“Then I will be Adelaide Delaney. I’ve always been Adelaide Delaney”


End file.
